Sowing seeds of equality

San Joaquin County's top three crops are milk, winegrapes and inequality. But this week the U.S. Supreme Court reduced the bitter harvest.

Michael Fitzgerald

San Joaquin County's top three crops are milk, winegrapes and inequality. But this week the U.S. Supreme Court reduced the bitter harvest.

The court denied an appeal of a ruling that struck down Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriage. It also struck down the part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal benefits to same-sex married couples.

What this means to San Joaquin is so far-reaching I can't wrap my head completely around it.

It means - for starters - same-sex couples can file joint tax returns. They can file for joint Social Security benefits. It means same-sex spouses can leave a lot more of their estate to their loved ones and hence to their children.

That's bigger than just money.

"The prohibitions against same-sex marriage are ... about ensuring that only certain kinds of people, and certain kinds of families, are able to amass power and ... influence over the direction of our society," writes Ta-Nehisi Coates, a senior editor for The Atlantic magazine who blogs on its website.

It means immigrants to our extraordinarily diverse county with same-sex partners languishing in other countries can apply for a spousal green card.

It means gay San Joaquin kids need not grow up with the wound to their identity and self-esteem that comes from knowing they can never marry like Dad and Mom did.

It means gay people on their deathbeds can die with their loved ones at their side, not alone, or at the mercy of cruel and bigoted relatives.

It means gay people can exercise their elementary human right to marry whomever they wish, and Uncle Sam admits he has no business getting in the way - which strikes me as essentially conservative, by the way.

It means America just became more equal.

It also means San Joaquin County has some soul-searching to do. Voters in this county approved Prop. 8 by about 65 percent to 35 percent - almost a 2-to-1 tally.

Though, concluded Justice Anthony Kennedy: "No legitimate purpose overcomes the purpose and effect to disparage and to injure those whom the State, by its marriage laws, sought to protect in personhood and dignity."

In other words, 65 percent of S.J. voters voted to "disparage and injure" good people for no good reason.

Oh, they thought they had a couple. Same-sex marriage was going to destroy the "institution" of traditional marriage, remember?

Clear evidence now shows that concern was just wrong. Massachusetts legalized same-sex marriage in 2003. Since that time, heterosexual divorce rates have actually gone down in that state to the lowest in the nation, 2.2 percent.

Why? The answer may lie in the fusion of fundamentalism and Republicanism in our time. And in San Joaquin's enduringly conservative institutions and rural character.

"The county has not - for a variety of reasons - liberalized or evolved toward liberal institutions," said Bob Benedetti of the Jacoby Center at University of the Pacific.

By "institutions," Benedetti means media, religion, arts, politics and education. "So there is not the kind of institutional base to change people's basic values."

On the contrary. Evangelical Christian groups migrated here in recent decades, cementing conservatism. Meanwhile, on the national level, the religious right took over the Republican Party.

And, bottom line, San Joaquin County is rural. Much as I hate to exclude myself from the cosmopolitan club, it's true.

"Same-sex marriage is a touchstone issue for religious conservatives, all the more so in a rural environment," said Keith Smith, an assistant professor of political science at Pacific.

Bishop Stephen Blaire, head of the Catholic Diocese of Stockton, issued a statement after the Supreme Court's rulings in support of traditional marriage.

But his Most Reverend Excellency seemed concerned that some might think him a bigot.

"I think what has been very, very difficult for me and a number of people is that (as) we hold to what we believe to be the essential nature of marriage and its importance this is not in any way to diminish people who believe differently," Blair said.

But we don't merely diminish others. When we hold people back, we thwart our collective potential. Given the crippled state of Stockton and the San Joaquin Valley, it shouldn't take the Supreme Court to make that clear.